introduction

Exploring conceptualization through the lens of spontaneous co-thought gestures produced during abstract relational reasoning.

“We are more apt to make a grasping gesture when we speak of grasping an idea than when we speak of grasping a doorknob.” Benjamin Lee Whorf 1

Do people gesture even when thinking about abstract, non-spatial relations?

What factors influence the production of analogical co-thought gestures?

Is it worth visualizing the basic structure of experimental design?


DESIGN
  • Within-subjects (2 x 2 x 3)

    • spatiality of relations
      • spatial
      • non-spatial
    • axis of relations
      • vertical
      • horizontal
    • problem difficulty
      • hard
      • easy
      • invalid
  • (Blocked by problem type and axis with difficulty pseudorandomly interleaved.)

  • Visualizations

    • The factors of an experiment are typically described without visualization, particularly when there are more than two factors. When they are visualized, it is usually as a matrix grid.
    • Alternative visual forms may more readily capture the hierarchical structure of crossed multifactorial designs.
    • Thoughts about visualizing this structure? Is it helpful?
    • Could also try a tree map with groups and subgroups.
    • Need colors and labelling.

Linear syllogisms were used to systematically vary relation type and difficulty.


METHODS

  • After the experimenter left the room, participants solved 40 linear syllogisms, blocked by trial type (n = 24).

  • Each syllogism was presented for 10 seconds.

  • Participants solved each problem by saying “yes” if true, “no” if false, and “can’t tell” if invalid.

  • Data of participants was coded for response accuracy, gesture presense, and axis of gesturing.

Waffleplots not rendering (shown as image).

Typical visualization of mean comparison results.


A limitation of barplots.


Histograms

Boxplots


Using split violin plots to visualize distributions of mean comparisons.


Order effects (chronological)


SKETCHES (temp)

library(igraph)
library(ggraph)

dendrogram <- as.dendrogram(hclust(dist(iris[, 1:4])))

ggraph(dendrogram, 'dendrogram') + 
  geom_edge_elbow()

ggraph(dendrogram, 'dendrogram', circular = TRUE) + 
  geom_edge_elbow() + 
  coord_fixed()


dendro_data <- level_01_data %>%
  select(SPACE_IV, AXIS_IV, DIFF_IV)

dendro_study_design <- as.dendrogram(hclust(dist(dendro_data)))


ggraph(dendro_study_design, 'dendrogram') + 
  geom_edge_elbow()

ggraph(dendro_study_design, 'dendrogram', circular = TRUE) + 
  geom_edge_elbow() + 
  coord_fixed()

  1. Whorf, B. L. (1944) The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language. Etc: A Review of General Semantics, 1(4), 197–215.

  2. e.g., Kita, S., Alibali, M. W., & Chu, M. (2017). How do gestures influence thinking and speaking? The gesture-for-conceptualization hypothesis. Psychological Review, 124(3), 245–266.

  3. Cooperrider, K., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2017). When Gesture Becomes Analogy. Topics in Cognitive Science, 9(3), 719–737.